


Close Quarters

by Cohava



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, GingerRose Week 2020, Huddling For Warmth, Pre-Relationship, Prompt: Glove/Coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24113212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cohava/pseuds/Cohava
Summary: Rose Tico rescues Hux from the First Order before they have a chance to execute him for treason. With a long journey ahead, the two of them have a heart to heart and Hux starts to come to terms with some unpleasant truths.Also featuring: Huddling Together For Warmth (but Absolutely No Feelings No Sir)
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: GingerRoseWeek2020





	Close Quarters

The escape pod is freezing. 

Well, this is just the icing on the proverbial cake, isn’t it? Armitage Hux reflects moodily from his corner. 

He has been shoved there by the brusque Resistance agent tasked with saving him from a timely execution. it is just his luck that the very same agent is one of the Rebel spies he caught last year on the Finalizer, the ones he mocked and tried to have killed. She definitely remembers that and harbours no goodwill towards him. 

So far, she has only spoken to him to issue curt orders (‘follow me’ ‘stay put’), to tell him her name and rank (‘Rose Tico’ ‘Commander’) and, lastly, to inform him that since the journey to the rendez-vous point is going to stretch the escape pod’s capabilities beyond what they are equipped to handle, she is going to re-route more power to the life-support and engines, partially disabling everything she deems non-essential. 

It is a sensible plan, of course. In fact, he privately admires Commander Tico’s willingness to endure some minor discomfort in order to complete her mission successfully. It doesn’t change the fact that the pod is karking freezing, the unpleasant sensation augmented by his forced immobility and subsequent boredom; he did try to offer his help, ambling closer to the disassembled control panel, but Commander Tico disabused him of this notion with a swift elbow to the ribs. He has not moved from his spot since. 

It is understandable. Predictable, in hindsight. Resistance people are notoriously soft, but even them are not so foolish as to allow a former enemy such as himself in close proximity not to mention this particular Resistance operative holds a personal grudge against him. He should have expected it. And the physical abuse is honestly minimal compared to what he had expected to suffer at the hands of the Resistance—not that he thinks there isn’t more to come. On-base Rebels will probably be crueler. They may have saved him because he still has a lot of valuable informations to provide, but he doesn’t have any illusions about how he will be treated there. 

Still, the humiliation stings. 

He swallows. Grinds his teeth. Endures. 

The stillness and boredom are almost as insidious as the cold, and he has nothing to do but watch Commander Tico tinker with the wires under the control panel. Her finger must have gone numb from the cold but nonetheless she handles the tools with practiced ease. She is competent, he thinks. He also notices that her hair has grown since he last saw her: now she wears it gathered in a bun at the back of her head. 

What a ridiculous thing to notice. He must be really bored if he is paying attention to such an inconsequential detail. 

“What is going to happen to me?” he asks suddenly, his mouth running without any sort of input from his brain. Commander Tico doesn't answer, she just glares at him.

Well then. “Don’t worry,” he sneers. “I’m merely curious. Rest assured I won’t cause you any trouble whatever the answer.” 

“I don’t know,” she deigns to say. “General Organa only told me she wants you alive.” 

He thanks her stiffly. The information isn’t very reassuring; first of all, he could have guessed that much from the fact that they didn’t simply leave him to the mercy of the First Order, and anyway the assurance of his continued living isn’t particularly comforting in itself. Organa may well be planning to torture him, or to put him through a mockery of a public trial to make an example out of him. Leaders need scapegoats: someone for her people to focus their anger on, rather than question her decisions. 

He realizes suddenly that Commander Tico is staring fixedly at him as he muses, dark eyes searching his face. He shifts uncomfortably. 

“What?” He asks. 

“You don’t look very worried,” she wonders softly. 

“Should I be?”

“You built Starkiller.” Her eyes grow harder. “No one is going to forget that, or forgive you.”

“I expect not.”

“Why?” The loud outburst startles him. The way she’s looking at him now--she’s almost desperate to understand. 

“Why did you do that? I understand war, I do, and I understand building powerful weapons but that--the idea of annihilating an entire system is just--” she grasps for words. Trying to find some that can encompass the enormity of what he has done. 

But there aren’t any. He should know. 

“Does it matter?” He answers dully. “It’s done.” And I have lost, however the war ends. 

“You really don’t give a damn, do you,” she says, trembling a little. “You don’t give a damn about anything. I know you don’t care about the Resistance, Finn told me--you’re only helping us because of that ridiculous grudge against Kylo Ren--”

“Grudge!” 

He’s breathing heavily. All semblance of control he tried so hard to project is shattered, and he can almost feel the phantom pressure closing around his throat. 

“That man has betrayed everything I ever stood for!”

“What, murder? Genocide?”

“Order!”

His voice reverberates on the metal walls, filling the space between them. He hasn’t raised it since his arrest, and it feels good to shout again. 

“I wanted to bring order to the Galaxy. Don’t you see? Everywhere you turn there’s a wrong to right. It’s endless, chaotic, it won’t ever be solved without a radical change, a strong leader with the power to act without interference.”

“That’s a dictatorship!”

“That’s rational! How else do you think--” he cuts himself off abruptly. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeats. “I tried to bring about my vision and I failed. I lost. My thoughts haven't mattered ever since Ren took control of the First Order; he is a madman and a fanatic, obsessed with his mystical nonsense and relics of a past long gone. He destroyed everything I worked for and corrupted the First Order from within. So, what does it matter what my ideas are now? I haven’t got a chance in hell to make them come true anymore; I can only hope to limit the damage Ren can do. Beyond that, I don’t care what happens to me anymore except… Except that I wish to avoid further humiliation…” he presses his lips tight. He hadn’t meant to say all of that, least of all to show vulnerability. He got carried away. 

Commander Tico looks troubled. She looks like she wants to respond, but she probably knows that further debate would be pointless; a waste of breath. She looks serious, and very pale. 

Finally, after an excruciatingly long time, all she says is: “She won’t do that. General Organa, I mean. She is not going to humiliate you; that’s just not how she is.”

He doesn’t believe her at all, of course, but a hard look from Commander Tico dares him to say so. He stays silent. 

Without the distraction, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the biting cold. His feet are going numb inside the boots, and he flexes them slightly to try and regain some feeling. Commander Tico is even worse off than he is, being far less equipped to deal with harsh temperatures: her uniform is maddeningly casual, the top half consisting only of an ocra shirt and suspenders, while he reaps the benefits of a thick officer’s overcoat. 

He shrugs it off.

“Here,” he says gruffly, holding out the garment to Tico. She doesn’t take it. Eyes him suspiciously. 

“Why are you doing this?”

He struggles to say something to justify his gesture.

“It seems wise to earn some goodwill from a high-ranking officer of the Resistance,” is what he settles on. The truth is far, far more complicated. 

The truth is that some part of him wants to feel the cold, as harshly as he can. Pain is grounding, a reminder of who he is and what he has done, of the situation he finds himself in. The truth is that he is prideful and more than a little vain, and offering Tico his coat is something he can do right now to feel a measure of strength, power even: to feel like the kind of man who can afford to concede a favour because he himself doesn’t need anything. The truth is also that he likes this particular high ranking Resistance officer. He remembers her defiance back when the tables were turned and, as much as it vexed him then, can’t help but admire her for it. There is also the fact she has saved him from certain death even though he didn’t care to be saved. 

She hates him deeply yet she is delivering him unharmed to the Resistance--she hasn’t even tried to hurt him during the journey even though she has plenty of ways to do it without leaving any traces and surely, even if such a thing was forbidden, her comrades would never believe his word over hers. She even made an attempt to understand him, despite her clear disgust for him and his actions.

It terrifies him. So, he offers her his coat. He doesn’t know what else to do. 

“I’m used to physical discomfort,” he adds after some time has passed and Tico hasn’t taken his offer. 

“So am I,” she counters. 

He should just accept her refusal, but his pride is far too high to put the coat back on and, apparently, hers isn’t in the face of the rapidly dropping temperature. 

“We’ll share,” she decides, sitting next to him on the uncomfortable metal bench. The shock is so great that Hux barely reacts to her actions, pliant under her touch as she takes the coat and drapes it over both their shoulders, so he can wear the right sleeve and she can curl up against his left side, snugly wrapped under the folds of the coat and, inevitably, his other arm. 

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she warns him. “We are both going to be warmer like this, but don’t make me regret it.” 

She is deadly serious, he can tell, yet the statement in itself is hilarious when he is farther from comfortable than he has ever been. 

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Commander Tico is… well endowed. In the womanly sense. But he certainly hadn’t been as keenly aware of this fact as he is now, when the side of her breast is pressed against his shirt. And it’s not just that--he can feel so much of her body, it seems almost too much for such a small woman; he feels the entirety of her leg against his, her shoulders under his arm, her side against his side, her right arm curled rather awkwardly behind his back. He can smell her hair, which is not something he ought to be doing but can’t help it because her head is so close, and he can barely breathe. 

Enveloped in his coat, heartbeats next one another and drifting in the dark of space, they might well be the only two beings in the entire universe. 

They sit still. Tense. He tries to think about anything at all to distract himself from her warm and soft body. 

“You were right, Commander--this is the most efficient way to preserve heat, after all,” he says haltingly. Belatedly.

“Basic survival training.” 

“Yes, it… it makes sense.” 

They fall silent again.

“Hux,” she says after a long while.

“Yes?”

“Is it true that you grew up in the Order?”

Why the sudden curiosity? He wonders. 

“Yes.”

“How was it?”

He considers the question.

“Efficient, I suppose. It was very… I was very driven. We were taught our values and goals and how to achieve them. Why?”

“I’ve heard some things. Finn says… he said it was brutal.”

“He is a traitor…”

“So are you now.

“I… yes. I suppose so. Yes”

“I just wonder. Because you chose to help us eventually. If you hate Kylo Ren so much you could have just… left. Go to the Outer Rim, change your name, make another life for yourself. Why didn’t you?”

As he ponders her questions, he finds he cannot even imagine how that other life would look like. The thought hadn’t ever occurred to him. 

“I have already told you what I think about Ren. He is dangerous. You have never met him, have you? I suppose I felt I needed to stop him.”

“Hm.”

She considers this. He listens to her even rhythm of her breathing. 

“It won’t be easy for you, working for us,” she says. He feels her shift, sees her free hand brush against a pendant around her neck. He looks away immediately, not wanting his eyes to linger on the generous curve of her chest. “But I think things are always deeper and more complicated than they look. I think… I think you might even find a purpose with us. If you really want to.”

Can he? He really doesn’t know. But he feels her warmth and for the first time he thinks that, perhaps, he can.


End file.
